


i've got these habits that i cannot break

by zeitgeistofnow



Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Families of Choice, Family Fluff, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Humor, Getting Back Together, M/M, Matchmaking, POV Alternating, Trust Issues, kindaaaa it's stretching the definition of the trope but i think it counts, miya just gets them to pretend to be his dads for most of this fic, miya's out here scheming and i think that's very fun for him, plus cameos from the rest of the team
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:02:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29669070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeitgeistofnow/pseuds/zeitgeistofnow
Summary: miya puts on his most pitiful face and tucks himself into joe’s side. “my dads are getting divorced,” he says, trying to sound like the very subject of conversation puts him close to tears. he feels joe’s chest constrict, like he’s trying to hold in a reaction, and miya digs one of his nails into his friend's side. if joe laughs now, not only will miya commit homicide, but the victim will be one specific head chef.joe’s chest relaxes and he says, in the same sad tone as miya, “he was cheating on me with the head chef at his restaurant."
Relationships: (mentioned/background), Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki, Nanjo Kojiro | Joe & Chinen Miya, Nanjo Kojiro | Joe/Sakurayashiki Kaoru | Cherry Blossom, Sakurayashiki Kaoru | Cherry Blossom & Chinen Miya
Comments: 70
Kudos: 487





	1. miya

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thebubblequeen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebubblequeen/gifts).



> title from sins of my youth by neons trees!! the whole album really reminds me of them

Miya is fine, healthy and spry and not even all that tired. Not that he’s going to tell anyone that today.

He fakes another weak cough over his algebra test and his teacher looks up from where she’s grading homework at her desk, mild concern creasing her brow as she scans the room for whoever was disturbing the peace.

Miya coughs again, a little louder this time, to make it easier for her. He writes his name at the top of his page and pretends to stifle another cough. 

_ Solve for x, _ the paper says. Miya’s teacher zeroes in on where Miya’s pressed a fist against his mouth to cover any future coughing and her chair creaks as she stands. 

_ 71/6x=x(9x-3),  _ the paper says, mocking him. Miya feels himself grimace and he coughs again to cover up the expression. His teacher’s heels click against the linoleum. Miya looks up, eyes wide and innocent, when she taps his shoulder.

“Miya,” she says softly, “are you feeling alright?”

“I’ll be fine, sensei,” Miya says, trying very hard for a pitifully brave expression. He’s honestly surprised his teachers keep falling for it. “I want to be able to get through this math-” he turns into his elbow and fakes another coughing fit. The girl at the desk in front of him turns about to glare at him. His teacher frowns.

“How about you go down to the school nurse, alright? She can call anyone that needs to be called and give you some cough drops.”

Miya looks sadly at his math test. “I probably should, shouldn’t I.”

His teacher follows his gaze to where he’s carefully written his name and started to half-ass answering the first problem. She looks sympathetic. “You can make up the exam whenever you’re feeling better,” she assures him, “I just don’t want your coughing to be a distraction for the other students.”

Fuck yeah, that was like taking candy from a baby. Miya hides a victorious smirk.

“Thank you so much,” he says, and coughs once more. For good measure.

Once he’s safely in the hallway and has checked for hall monitors at both ends, he tucks himself against the end of a row of lockers and pulls out his phone.

**to: joe** **  
****come pick me up from school** **  
** **im sick 😿**

It’s not like Joe would say no to  _ him,  _ and even if he doesn’t get the text, Miya’s forged his parents signatures to put Joe and Cherry at the top of his emergency contacts and the nurse will call him when Miya asks. Getting out of class is a lot easier when the people who can come pick you up are chill. 

Prep work done, Miya tucks his phone back in his pocket and walks down to the nurse's office, rehearsing his excuses for why the fact that he doesn’t have a temperature shouldn’t mean that he can’t leave school early and then plotting exactly what he wants Joe to buy him from Mcdonalds.

“We called your dad quite a while ago,” the nurse says, brow creased, “when do you think he’ll show up?”

Miya coughs again and the kid nursing a headache in the corner of the room shoots him a nervous look. He glares back. “Uh,” he says, “His restaurant isn’t open today, so he shouldn’t be busy. I’m not really sure what might be taking him so long.”

“Hmm,” the nurse says, “he didn’t sound busy when we called him, either. Hopefully he’ll show up soon- we don’t want to keep you here too long with that cough, honey.”

“Mm-mm,” Miya agrees, propping his chin up on his hand and staring out the window at the parking lot. There are a few cars already out there, ones that Miya’s pretty sure are the teachers’, and he lets himself look away from the entrance to gaze longingly at the college students doing skate tricks at the corner.

“Don’t forget your things when your dad comes to pick you up, sweetheart,” the nurse says. Miya mumbles a response and glances back at the street, brightening when he sees a familiar car pull up to the front doors. His good mood only lasts a moment, though, because then he realizes that Joe is on a skateboard a few feet behind the car, waving his arms vehemently, and that Miya’s being familiar with the car doesn’t mean that it’s  _ Joe’s. _

Of course something had to go wrong, because Miya couldn’t just manipulate the system to get out of math like a normal kid. No, the nurse just  _ had _ to call the wrong contact.

He’s mostly consigned himself to a tense, potentially-horrifying-potentially-hilarious conversation by the time Joe and Cherry make their way into the front office. He’s not ready for them to seemingly have a perfectly civil conversation with the lady at the front desk and then for Cherry to  _ put a hand on Joe's back  _ to lead him to the nurse's office, the gesture familiar and offhand.

It’s only the slight tightness in Joe’s face at the touch that reassures Miya that this isn’t just a particularly strange waking dream.

“Hey, kiddo,” Joe says when he swings the heavy door open. It bangs against the door stop and nearly bounces back to hit him in the shoulder. Cherry stops it with a hand and shoots Joe a poorly concealed glare. “Came with your dad to pick you up, since otherwise he’d probably spoil you rotten,” Joe continues. “He said that he was going to take you to eat and  _ I  _ said that’s no way to treat someone who’s feeling sick. No Mcdonalds tonight.” He grins and clicks his tongue. Cherry’s mood is visibly tinging closer to rage. “Kaoru said that you have to be nice to the invalid, but I think that what you need is a blanket burrito and some of my famous bitter soup.”

“I said no such thing,” Cherry hisses, stomping on Joe’s foot and crossing his arm. Joe clicks his tongue and tilts his head, almost imperceptibly, toward the school nurse. Cherry clears his throat. “I just didn’t want to subject you to your…  _ father’s  _ disgusting soup. I have to get back to work after this, but I will attempt to persuade him to leave you alone.”

Miya coughs weakly. “Uh, thanks, dad.”

The school nurse furrows her brow. “I believe I only spoke to one man on the phone- the one who works at a restaurant, Mr. Sakurayashiki?”

Cherry shoots Miya a glare and Miya gives him one back. It’s not like he anticipated this!

“I… yes, that is me,” Cherry manages, “Kaoru Sakurayashiki. The owner of an italian restaurant. My…” he visibly grinds his teeth and Miya winces. If his careful deception, the wool over the school administration’s eyes comes apart just because Cherry can’t bear to be civil to his least favorite chef, Miya is going to commit homicide. “...husband ran into me here. Evidently Miya accidentally texted him instead of me to prepare a ride home. It was quite the pleasant surprise.”

“Always love to see my favorite chef!” Joe says, and laughs low in his chest. Cherry smacks him with a fan that disappears as quickly as it appeared. 

“Yeah, sorry about that, father.” Miya hops off his spot on the windowsill and hurries to his ‘dads’’ sides. He coughs again, pitifully, hoping to counter any chipperness the nurse might read in his movements. “I just need you to come with me when I pick up my stuff from my locker.”

Cherry’s face sours, evidently at the idea of having to spend even another five minutes in Joe’s company. “Miya, are you sure you need me to accompany you? When I agreed to leave work to pick you up, I didn’t think that I would have to see  _ your father  _ here.” 

Joe smirks and wraps an arm around Cherry’s waist. “Aw, so eager to get away from me? I’m sure your  _ restaurant  _ can wait a few minutes, sweetheart.”

Cherry looks stricken by the pet name for a brief, uncomfortable moment, before hitting the hand on his hip with his fan and stepping pointedly away from Joe. “Tch,” he says, “my head chef never seems to do much of anything, so I can’t be away from the restaurant for too long, lest he start napping on the job.”

Joe elbows him. Miya resists the urge to rest his face in his hands and start crying. His perfect escape, foiled by two 30 year old men.

The nurse’s brow furrows. “Are you sure you two are-” she obviously realizes that that line of questioning would be rude and cuts herself off, which Miya is unimaginably thankful for. “I thought Miya said you weren’t working today,” she says instead. 

This is worse. Miya knows the restaurant is closed today, and he’s sure both Cherry and Joe know too, but Cherry didn’t know that this lie would consist of him pretending to work at the restaurant when he started griping about Miya tearing him away from his office.

“I- yes,” Cherry says. A very small smile slowly spreads across his face, and Miya allows himself a brief moment of relief- the calligrapher obviously has a plan. “However, my  _ husband  _ snores horribly in the early morning, so I often leave the house early. It was particularly bad today, so I decided to get some paperwork done. I’ve been holed up there all day, lest he offend my chef sensibilities with that drivel he calls lunch.”

“You love my cooking,” Joe says, grinning.

“I most certainly do not,” Cherry says, smile disappearing. 

The nurse still looks concerned about whether they’re really married and that doubt means that she’s unsure if they’re really Miya’s fathers, which means she’s unsure if they should be allowed to take him away from his math test and the horrible atmosphere in the room. “Ah,” she says, “one last question before I allow you to take him away. Mr. Sakurayashiki. Why do you not share a last name with Miya?”

Fuck.

Miya scrambles through his brain for a good excuse. Finding one feels like how he imagined it must have felt to find the holy grail. 

Miya puts on his most pitiful face and tucks himself into Joe’s side. “My dads are getting divorced,” he says, trying to sound like the very subject of conversation puts him close to tears. He feels Joe’s chest constrict, like he’s trying to hold in a reaction, and Miya digs one of his nails into his dad’s side. If Joe laughs now, not only will Miya commit homicide, but the victim will be one specific head chef. “Father started using his maiden name when he moved out,” Miya continues.

Joe’s chest relaxes and he says, in the same sad tone as Miya, “he was cheating on me with the head chef at his restaurant. I’ve been trying to maintain a friendly tone for Miya, but he’s never been good at taking the higher ground.”

Miya looks over at Cherry, whose positively  _ incensed  _ expression is covering the slight amusement Miya can see at the corners of his eyes. “Painting me as the bad guy, Kojiro?” he snaps. “Perhaps there was a different reason our  _ marriage _ fell apart, and it wasn’t because  _ I  _ was cheating on  _ you _ .”

Joe frowns, but there’s none of the inside joke behind it, none of the mocking amusement Miya could see in his eyes when he was just playing along with Miya’s deception. Something tells Miya that the situation is quickly spiraling out of his hands. “This again? Kaoru...  You know that I-” Oop. And there goes any amusement Cherry may have had with the situation. Miya claws Joe’s ribcage again, trying to convey that whatever the fuck is going on, it’s not needed for the act. Joe cuts himself off, thankfully, and shoots the nurse an sheepish look.

Cherry obviously doesn’t have any such inhibitions. “Playing dumb, of  _ course.  _ Although I suppose it’s barely an act for you at all, is it. Talking to me like the reason we didn’t work out is because I didn’t trust you enough. As if you gave me a reason to trust you. As if that…” Cherry’s breath catches, obviously hovering between two ways to end the sentence. It’s barely a moment’s hesitation, but it’s long enough for Miya to send Cherry a warning look and the man chooses the safe option. “... head chef was good enough for me.”

Joe doesn’t respond, just looks sad and ruffles Miya’s hair a little rougher than he needs to- probably payback for the tiny crescent imprints Miya can see in his shirt. He levels the nurse with that same mildly sad look and Miya mirrors him.  _ Convinced yet? _

The nurse no longer looks suspicious, just thoroughly uncomfortable. “I’m sorry for your troubles,” she says, “please, Miya can show you where his locker is. Make sure to keep him at as close to a steady temperature as you can. I gave him a few cough drops for his pockets.”

“Thank you,” Cherry says, voice clipped in a way Miya can now recognise as faintly embarrassed. 

There’s a moment of awkward silence, before Joe pats Miya’s head one last time and smiles charmingly at the nurse. Cherry’s frown deepens. Joe gestures to the door in the corner of the room with one hand. “We’ll just be going on our way- this door, right?”

The nurse nods. Her smile doesn’t look nearly as easy as Joe’s, but it’s probably just as fake. Miya’s glad no one in this situation is expecting  _ him  _ to fake one.

“Uh,” Miya says, and fakes another coughing fit as he leads the two men to the door out to the hallway, “my locker’s just down this way, since I’m a third year and we’re on the first floor.”

Joe hums in vague agreement, which Cherry evidently takes offence to because a moment later the chef makes a squawking noise that reminds Miya of a pigeon getting hit with a pebble.

Miya holds the door open for them and, out of the corner of his eye before he shuts it behind the pair, he sees the nurse shoot him a pitying look. 

When he turns around again Cherry and Joe are already halfway to his locker, shoulder to shoulder and bickering sharply.

It occurs to Miya that something about this is even worse than usual. Maybe it’s just the stress of nearly having his escape crumble before his eyes, but it feels like the bite to Cherry’s insults is less of an undertone now and Joe’s responses have an almost helpless, bewildered tinge to them. 

Miya resolves to ask Joe about it later, and then resolves to  _ definitely not do that,  _ since he could care less. He half-skips to catch up with them, shoving them apart inserting himself firmly between their shoulders. “My locker’s right here,” he says, the facade of politeness he gave the school nurse gone. They never deserve it. Especially not today. 

Both of his ‘dads’ watch as he does the combination lock and he studiously doesn’t let the leftover rage in Cherry’s gaze phase him. It takes a few long, uncomfortable minutes for Miya to shuffle his textbooks into his backpack, but then he’s skateboarding down the linoleum hallway toward the doors two hours before school lets out and Cherry and Joe’s squabbling has almost faded to background noise. He breathes a sigh of relief.

Mission… not quite  _ success,  _ but not quite as disastrous as it could have been. Well, that’s a stretch. Still, Miya isn’t doing his exam and he has his skateboard, so all is right in the world.

“Kid,” Joe says, head resting in his hand, “never do that again.”

Miya gnaws on a french fry, already reaching for another. Joe had been lying when he’d said that he wasn’t going to get Miya Mcdonalds, and Cherry had given him a slanted look when Joe had announced their next destination. He’s said something vague about rewarding deception and Joe had responded something about trusting Miya enough to know that if he needed to get out of school, he needed to get out of school. 

“Seriously,” Joe says. He stirs his pink milkshake by the straw. “You were there, you know how awkward it was. I don’t need that kinda stress in my life.”

Miya stuffs his next french fry into his mouth and opens the little packet of honey he’d been given for his chicken nuggets. He isn’t going to ask, he reminds himself, because he doesn’t care about old man drama at  _ all.  _ He’s not going to ask. He’s not-

Joe winces when he takes a sip of his shake and says, “damn, I guess getting cherry flavored ice cream wasn’t the best way to take my mind off him, huh?”

And that’s so  _ fucking  _ pathetic that Miya caves. “Why were you guys so weird?” he challenges, and Joe grimaces in a way that makes it clear that he needed to vent. And, since his main confidant is both the issue and someone who hates his guts, he’s babbling to a middle schooler.

Miya sometimes thinks he needs better role models, but then he thinks that maybe what he needed were thoroughly imperfect people. It’s harder to beat himself up over tiny mistakes when Reki is a few feet over wiping out and getting back up again. 

“I didn’t expect to run into him while I was picking you up, so I was off my game, and then he suggested the parenting bit, something about… ugh, I don’t even remember what he said. I agreed, like an idiot.”

“That was a stupid move,” Miya agrees, “you should have just told him to leave.” He offers Joe one of his fries and the chef opens another straw to poke into his shake for Miya. Miya sips at the ice cream. It doesn’t actually taste much like cherry- it might be strawberry, and that makes Joe’s bemoaning of the flavor all the worse. 

“I’m not very good at saying no to him,” Joe mutters.

_ He’s not very good at saying no to you, either,  _ Miya considers saying. He decides that nothing good can come from encouraging this, though. Instead he shrugs and says, “still, you two almost messed up my perfect get out of school free routine.”

Joe sighs and takes his cup back from Miya. “Sorry about that, kiddo, but we can’t have you getting too comfortable with that anyway. Kaoru was already pissed about this time.”

“He’s not the boss of you,” Miya points out.

Joe huffs an amused laugh and points his straw at Miya. “Don’t start with that. You’re right, he’s not the boss of me, but neither are you and I don’t want to be leaving the house at all hours of the day because you didn’t want to do your math test.”

“Whatever.”

“By the by,” Joe says, “you’re studying for that test at S tonight. You said you needed to fake being sick because you weren’t prepared? We’ll make sure you’re prepared for it next time.”

Miya groans. “Why at S?”

“Because that’s where I can keep track of you,” Joe says, faux severely, then grins. “Besides, chicks like guys who are good with kids. You’re my prop, since you owe me for today.”

Miya thinks they’re equal, since Joe made Miya stand through his divorce conversation, but he doesn’t say that. Instead, he curses his precociously clever mind for connecting dots he didn’t want to connect. “You just want to prove to Cherry that you’re not being irresponsible, don’t you,” he says.

Joe doesn’t answer, which is an answer in itself.

Miya dips one of his chicken nuggets in honey, then barbeque sauce. “Seriously, why was it so awkward? We basically only established that you were surprised to see him and a pushover, which isn’t exactly news.”

Joe runs his hands through the curls at the nape of his neck, the ones he ties back when he’s skating. “I figure you’ve figured this out from that whole conversation, but me and Kaoru broke up years ago when he… accused me of something I didn’t do. He held a grudge against me for it for years, and then I held a grudge against him for not trusting me, and then- well, you’ve seen where we are. I’ve forgiven him, since…” he furrows his brow and dunks one of Miya’s french fries in his shake. “... it’s been tough for him, and I was kinda a fuckboy when I was younger.”

Miya mumbles  _ aren’t you still?  _ but Joe doesn’t respond, too busy staring despondently at the tray their food had been on. It’s weird seeing Joe this vulnerable- not an unreasonable amount at all, but he’s always seemed like a kind of brick wall with exactly one weakness. He still seems like that, Miya figures, that weakness is just crumbling his defences a bit more today.

He decides, begrudgingly, that he can forgive Joe's deficiency today, just like Joe forgives Miya’s.

“But I don’t know if he trusts me again, even after all these years.” Joe grimaces and tosses the chicken nugget into his mouth. “It feels stupid, being sad over someone as flawed as him. He’s moved on- dated more than I have over the past few years, at least, and it’s pathetic that I haven’t been able to myself.”

Miya hums in agreement, but thinks of all the times he’s called Cherry for homework help, only to have Joe pick up the phone and tell him that Cherry was at the restaurant, of the way that he waits at the gates of S for Joe to show up, of the furious blush he assumes when Shadow teases too much, and thinks that Joe is a fucking idiot. A blind one, at that, because Miya is fourteen and still picked up on more of the situation than Joe.

Joe shakes his head and offers Miya his shake again. Miya gives him one of the scrawny french fries from the bottom of his carton and Joe crunches on it sadly. “I think I’m still in love with him,” he says finally, “isn’t that stupid?” He looks up at Miya, eyes self-deprecatingly amused and just a little sad.

Jesus fucking christ. Miya hates it here. “I’m fourteen, old man,” he says, “Years seem like a long time for anything.”

Joe snorts. “Yeah, I guess they do.” He still looks melancholy.

Miya cannot handle this, he decides. This is a problem that needs to be solved as soon as possible, and there’s no way Joe is going to solve it, so it falls to Miya.

Sure, it’ll be uncomfortable. Certainly for Joe and Cherry, likely for anyone in their general vicinity at any point in the multi-phase plan that Miya is quickly concocting. Joe will probably get pissed about it, but he’ll thank Miya eventually and Miya can get Shadow to buy his fast food for a month or two.

Miya briefly entertains the idea that they might be  _ worse  _ with their shit together, but then Joe sighs lovelornly and takes a sad sip of his shake, obviously still under the impression that it’s cherry-flavored, and Miya decides anything would be better than this.

As they’re cleaning up their trash, Joe points an accusing finger at Miya. “Seriously, if that happens again, I’m not going to be so forgiving.”

Miya tries to exude an angelic aura, halo and all. “It definitely won’t, old man!” he chirps, tossing his french fry carton into the garbage.

Joe barely even looks suspicious, and Miya’s innocent smile turns smug. 

_ Solve by factorization,  _ the math textbook says. A few yards away, Reki does what is apparently a very impressive trick for a golem and Langa cheers. 

_ 72/3x+6=x(4x+6x),  _ the math textbook says. Miya chews on the end of his frog pencil and revists the patricide idea of earlier. Joe is on the other side of the area, chatting with some girls, but he shoots Miya warning glances whenever Miya’s hand starts to drift toward his skateboard. 

He’s not even showing off how good he is with kids- he’d mentioned it to Cherry when they’d skated in together and Cherry had said  _ how responsible, you overgrown gorilla  _ with one of the more dry expressions Miya’s seen from him, but Joe hasn’t said anything about it since.

Miya knew making him do his homework was more for Cherry’s benefit than anything else, but he’s still horrified to find that confirmed. 

His help really is needed.

Well, his help and/or revenge. 

_ 72/3x+6=4x2+6x2,  _ Miya writes. He’s pretty sure he should be doing something with the left side of the equation, but he doesn’t think he would know what at the best of times, and he certainly doesn’t now, not with the click and scrape of skating surrounding up, making his fingers itch for the feeling of a board against them. 

_ 72/3x+6=10x2,  _ he writes, then stares at the equation for a moment, stumped despite himself. He hates algebra and he hates Joe for making him do algebra at S. His parent trap-esque plans are quickly becoming more spiteful.

_ 24x+6=10x2,  _ he writes tentatively, then  _ 6+24x-10x2=0.  _ He grimaces and, a few yards away, Reki finally wipes out with what could aptly be described as a war cry. 

Miya stifles a grin and pretends to act surprised when Langa and Reki run over to where he’s sitting. Reki’s got a few new bandaids on his face, the floral ones Shadow started carrying around when Reki and Langa started expressing concern about each other’s scrapes getting infected.

“Golem,” Miya greets solemnly. Reki flops against the stone wall next to him and starts guzzling his coke.

“Whatcha doing?” Reki asks, slinging an arm around Miya’s shoulder. Miya’s first instinct is to violently push him away, but it feels the same kind of safe and familiar that tucking himself against Joe’s side had earlier in the day, so he lets it pass.

“Math homework,” Miya says. “I don’t understand it.”

“I can maybe help,” Langa volunteers, crouching on Reki’s other side. “I had an okay time in middle school math.”

Reki makes a face- he obviously didn’t have an okay time in middle school math. Miya snorts. 

“Unless it’s factoring,” Langa says, at the same moment Reki peers at the textbook and says, “ew, it’s factoring.”

Langa frowns and steals Reki’s soda. “Sorry, Miya.”

“It’s alright,” Miya says, “it’s Joe’s fault anyway. He won’t let me touch my skateboard until I finish this practice test with an 80% or more.” Miya rolls his eyes. “It’s to show off how responsible he is to Cherry.”

Langa exchanges a very meaningful look with Reki over the plastic bottle he’s drinking from and Miya grins. He’d been hoping for co conspirators.

Still, it feels… bad to gossip about things that Joe had probably told him in confidence. It’s a weird feeling, twisty in Miya’s stomach. People don’t usually trust him with things. He’s been told he’s too standoffish, too stuck up, occasionally too mischievous. But Joe just thought that he deserved to know what was going on. 

Miya feels a little bad that he won’t be able to tell Joe what’s going on with his plan, to return that trust, but then nothing would work quite right. He’ll just have to stay oblivious.

Miya looks seriously over at Reki and Langa. “They came to pick me up from school today,” he says. He’s about to explain the exact conditions of his early escape, but then Shadow walks over and leans up against the wall, so Miya just says, “uh, you know, after school, since my parents are busy today.”

Shadow glares down at him, having evidently already heard at least a bit of the story from Joe. Miya switches his tactics. “Okay, he picked me up early because I almost threw up during math class.” A white lie and one that obviously barely placates Shadow, but Miya moves on as quickly as he can, “and Cherry had the bright idea for them to fake being my dads.”

Langa looks thoughtful. “I guess that makes sense,” he says.

“Oh  _ no,”  _ Reki says, voice pitying. Shadow makes a similar distressed face.

“Don’t worry,” Miya says dryly, “I saved the day by asserting that they were getting divorced, and it went downhill from there.” He scowls. “I’ve decided that I can’t allow this to go any further, and so I will use my friendship with them both in order to matchmake.”

“Hell yeah,” Reiki says, any pity immediately replaced with something akin to pride as he squishes Miya into a tight side hug. 

Miya’s not used to people being proud of him for things that aren’t just skating, something that comes almost as easy as breathing. He feels his eyes widen and he can’t quite do anything but stare happily up at the high schooler. 

“Baby brother putting his  _ foot down,”  _ Reki continues, and that effectively breaks the spell.

“I’m not a  _ baby,”  _ Miya snaps, crossing his arms. “I’m just telling you so that you don’t get in my way or say anything that might tip them off.”

“We’ll stay out of it,” Shadow says, in a tone that implies he doesn’t want to come anywhere near the can of worms Miya is opening and that he doesn’t understand why the middle schooler is doing it at all. 

Miya thinks about trying to explain that it’s just because he thinks it’s funny, or beause he doesn’t want to have to put up with the thoroughly weird vibes the nurse’s office had again, but he knows that the real reason is something more akin to  _ caring  _ about the stupid collection of people who decided to care about him, and he doesn’t want to admit to that. “You better,” he says instead, and abandons his textbook in favor of his skateboard. 

Across the clearing, both Cherry and Joe turn to glare at him in synchrony. Shadow shivers and Miya beams at them and sticks out his tongue.

“C’mon, slimes,” he says, standing and waving to Langa and Reki, “let’s go actually have fun.”

Langa looks doubtful. “Joe said you have to finish your math.”

“He’s not the boss of me,” Miya says loudly, hoping that his voice carries enough for Joe to hear it, remember their earlier conversation, and decide that sucking up to Cherry is stupid and not worth the torture he’s putting Miya through. Joe obviously does, because his face goes flat almost immediately and he mutters something to Cherry, who flushes red with irritation.

Miya turns to grin at Langa and Reki. “They can’t do anything if they can’t catch me,” he explains, and hops onto his board. “See ya!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- im sure the math in this is inaccurate i hate factoring SO much so i was kinda just making things up :/ i don't know why i decided to put math in this  
> \- fanfiction is for making fun of characters and these three are my favorites and so of course they had to be the subject of my first sk8 fic sdfjlkj. they (& of course everyone else but especially them) just SCREAM found family and im obsessed with it.  
> \- miya is doing this 20% because he thinks cherry and joe pretending to be his dads is hysterical, 30% because he thinks it's excruciatingly painful and knows that they won't need to pretend to be dating if they're actually dating, and 50% because he genuinely cares about them and wants them to be happy but he will NOT admit the last part to anyone ever  
> \- if you enjoyed this, please comment/kudos/subscribe!!! getting feedback always makes me really happy. you can find me on tumblr @lazypigeon :)


	2. cherry blossom

**From: chinen miya 😺** **  
****will you meet me at va bene at like. 5:30**

 **From: Sakurayashiki Kaoru** **  
****Will we be eating dinner?**

 **From: chinen miya 😺** **  
****yeah probably** **  
****actually yes definitely if you agree to pay bc i have no money 😿**

 **From: Sakurayashiki Kaoru** **  
****Hm. I suppose I could cave to your demands. I haven’t had the time to go out anywhere but Sialaluce recently, a change of pace would be nice. Being able to eat without seeing that ridiculous ape, as well.** **  
****I heard from Kojiro that you nearly aced your math exam, as well, so a congratulatory dinner is in order.**

 **From: chinen miya 😺** **  
****okay** **  
****see u soon**

 **From: Sakurayashiki Kaoru** **  
****Indeed.**

He rides his bike to the restaurant, since he doesn’t want to be carrying Carla around all evening and the quickest route to that side of town involves a few shortcuts Cherry had discovered as a high schooler, ones he can’t take in a car. When he ends up parking next to another distinctly familiar looking bike, he starts to feel like he’s walked directly into a trap.

He entertains the notion that Joe’s apparent presence is nothing but coincidence, taking off his helmet and running his fingers through his hair to fluff it slightly, but dismisses the thought almost as soon as it comes. Cherry might have few objections to eating at Va Bene, but it’s unlikely that Joe would give a competitor business without someone inviting him. 

Cherry locks his helmet onto the bike and notes, distractedly, that there’s a second helmet on Joe’s motorcycle, one that’s black with pink decals and noticeably smaller than the beat up one Joe’s been wearing for years.

This was certainly a trap, he concludes, although he can’t imagine what Joe and Miya’s goal was.

He reties his hair as he starts to walk toward the front doors of the restaurant, where he can definitely see Joe and Miya loitering. He stifles the instinctive frown that comes with the potential ruination of his evening and allows himself to chuckle when Miya swats Joe’s arm for staring. 

“Hey,” Miya says, once Cherry’s under the awning next to them, “I’m glad you made it and didn’t run screaming when you saw this guy.”

Joe raises an eyebrow and Cherry rolls his eyes and looks away. They haven’t talked outside of S since the disaster at Miya’s school, and Cherry had shut down all of Joe’s attempts to breach the topic while skating with a firm, _things that happen out of S stay out of S._ He wasn’t sure how long he had intended to avoid the other man, but it seems like that’s all come to an end.

“I agreed to eat with _you_ ,” Cherry says. He doesn’t shoot a pointed look at Joe when he says that, because he’s an adult, but it’s a close thing. “And so I will.”

Miya looks unimpressed. “Cool, great, keep that thought in mind.” He tilts his head up to Joe again and says, “I need you guys to pretend to be my dads again,” he says, in a voice that leaves no room for argument.

Not that that would ever stop _Joe,_ who argues with anything that doesn’t perfectly fit his ideals. “Miya,” he says, “remember that little conversation we had a week ago?”

Cherry raises an eyebrow. 

Miya looks unabashed. “No,” he says, hands shoved in his sweatshirt pockets, “I don’t. What was the conversation about, dad?”

Cherry’s curious despite himself, so he turns to Joe and tries for a smile, one that will make Joe feel like he can say what it was. He never said he wasn’t nosy, and while he and Joe don’t normally share secrets- he could grudgingly say that they are close, arguably the most important people in each other’s lives, but he doesn’t _do_ trust anymore- he still wants to know. 

Joe meets Cherry’s eyes and something in his face goes sad, quietly behind his familiar grin. “I… fine, we’ll go along with whatever, kiddo,” he says. 

Cherry swallows his disappointment at Joe’s dodging of the question. It’s a silly feeling to have. He has never quite mustered the stupidity to trust again, and so it would be hypocritical to expect Joe to tell him whatever their conversation was about. 

It takes Cherry another second to digest exactly what Joe just agreed to and he whacks the other man’s irritatingly firm shoulder with his fan. “We will _not._ I will acquiesce to eating with this blockhead, as that is…” he eyes Joe, who’s back to his obnoxiously cheerful self, “regrettably nothing out of the ordinary, but please, no more charades.”

Joe slings an arm around Cherry and Cherry stiffens instinctively- it’s been years since he was so uncomfortable with Joe’s offhand affection, but the events last week, the prodding of some very old wounds, put him on edge. They’d been physically close as teenagers before they’d started dating and had resumed the mode of regarding each other as they had become friends again. Obviously, it feels slightly different now- their relationship hasn’t been anything near sexual since their disaster of a breakup, since Cherry has decided to give anything with _intimacy_ among its synonyms a wide berth, but there’s still something there. The debacle of a con at Miya’s school last week, the feeling of Joe’s waist beneath his hand, the momentary shock Cherry had felt under the other man’s skin at Cherry initiating contact, had only served to remind Cherry of _exactly_ what he wants. It’s not a particularly pleasant reminder.

Joe looks down at him almost immediately, mildly concerned. 

Cherry would never be so wanton as to curl against Joe the way all of his suitors seem to, but he does relax and nod in a way that will be imperceptible to Miya. Joe’s smile returns. 

“C’mon, humor the kid,” Joe says.

“I only need him too because they have a family discount,” Miya says, “I felt bad about making you pay for Joe when I invited him, so I figured I needed him here so we could get the discount.”

Cherry narrows his eyes. The logic is… flawed, and Miya’s smirk makes it clear that he’s just waiting for Cherry to call him on it. He just sighs. 

“I suppose,” he concedes, even though he wants to be doing anything but, “a discount does sound nice.”

“Cheapskate,” Joe says. Cherry elbows him. 

Miya sticks out his tongue. “It’s not like you guys aren’t already playing the part to a T,” he says, and throws the doors to the restaurant open before disappearing into the lobby. Cherry watches the kid’s back, the bright green hoodie and cute little cat tail, and feels a headache coming on. This was not how he thought his evening would go this morning, he thinks, and watches the double doors start to close.

Joe catches one of them with a hand but doesn’t make any movement to leave where he and Cherry are standing. 

Cherry shoots him an unimpressed look but doesn’t step away from the other man either. “Ruin this evening for me,” he says, “and die.”

Joe finally removes his arm from Cherry’s shoulder to flick his forehead with it. “Where’s the trust, sweetheart?” he says, “thought we’ve been happily married since high school, what with our fourteen-year-old kid.”

Cherry was half-prepared for the pet name, half-prepared for the nonchalant mention of _trust,_ and so he doesn’t let either of them distress him. At least not visibly. Joe’s touchy-feely nature may have phased back into their acquaintance since their break-up, but his pet names never did, so it’s nostalgic in a jarring way to hear them again.

And, of course, trust has always been an issue for him, hasn’t it.

“Hm,” Cherry says, grabbing Joe’s wrist and putting it at his side again, “I’m not sure if _happily_ is the right word. Let’s go, Miya is likely waiting for us.”

**From: chinen miya 😺** **  
****can you pick me up from the boardwalk** **  
****my parents are busy and reki and langa totally bailed on me** **  
****they said it was my fault for 3rd wheeling on their date but they invited me 😾**

 **From: Sakurayashiki Kaoru** **  
****Yes, of course.** **  
****Please text me the closest intersection so I know the vague area of where to look for you.**

When Cherry arrives at the boardwalk and finds not Miya but a fairly bewildered looking Joe, he is possibly more startled than he should be. It’s been at least a week since the last time Miya pulled this shit, and their dinner had ended well enough that Cherry had started patronizing Sialaluce again. He’d half-assumed that whatever childish goal Miya had had was resolved after that, since he and Joe are back on speaking terms.

He still refuses to talk about their ‘divorce case’ as Joe called it, but he doesn’t think either of them are particularly surprised about that. Cherry doesn’t do emotions. It’s too vulnerable, and he _hates_ being vulnerable. Hates having any part of him in someone else's hands, even when those hands are as familiarly steady as Joe’s.

And so he’s dismayed to find that his stomach does the same idiotic little flip flop whenever he sees Joe unexpectedly, dismayed by the warmth that settles at the base of his lungs when standing next to the other man. When he’s at S or Sialaluce, it’s generally not too hard to blow the warmth into something hotter, rage or irritation that he can do whatever he wants with, but the cool night surrounding them and the softness of the wind-scraped wood beneath his feet, he can’t quite muster anything but contentedness.

Disgusting.

He’s already scowling by the time Joe stops looking confused and starts looking curious.

“Have you seen Miya?” Joe asks first, tucking his paperback into his back pocket and scratching his head. “He told me to-”

“Pick him up because Langa and Reki ditched him?” Cherry interrupts. 

There’s a moment, Cherry standing and Joe looking up from his perch on one of the boulders lining the boardwalk, as Joe connects the dots. Then his eyes go flat and he grimaces. “Ugh, what a kid.”

“That’s certainly one way to put it,” Cherry says. “I’m leaving.”

He turns on his heel, clicks his tongue for Carla to wake up again, and promptly trips over what he’d like to say was a loose board but could just as possibly have been his own feet. He inhales sharply as he feels himself falling, resigning himself to embarrassment and bruises for the next few days. 

The impact doesn’t come, though, just arms around his shoulders and his back against Joe’s chest. It’s a little awkward, the momentum of Cherry’s falling body making him lean too heavily against the other man, and he can almost feel a quip settling on Joe’s tongue, but it feels… safe.

Cherry feels his eyes widen at the thought- it’s somehow both uncomfortable and not, and he doesn’t like that at _all_ so he puts it as far out of mind as he can and hauls himself back to his feet. 

“Close one,” Joe says. He’s standing now, and Cherry doesn’t think about how quickly he must have had to have stood up to catch Cherry, how he must have been watching to see the moment his foot had caught on the ground. 

The affirmation that Joe watches Cherry enough to jump in and try to protect him from stupid things like stumbles feels secure too- feels like Cherry _trusts_ him with his saftey, and that is another thought to label dangerous and shove as far away as possible. 

He’s not stupid, he sees how Joe looks at him and he’s not dumb enough to trust anyone to be that close again. God knows he doesn’t begrudge _Joe_ anything anymore, not when he hadn’t done anything in the first place, but at the time the breaking of that trust had hurt more than anything had the right to, building on everything that had happened with Adam until Cherry collapsed under its weight. No, it’s not about Joe, Cherry just refuses to let himself get hurt again. That kind of trust is a trap, and it’s not one he’s willing to walk into again. It’s not safe.

No matter what it feels like.

“Hmph,” Cherry says. “Goodbye.”

“That’s no way to say thank you,” Joe says softly, straightening and slipping his hands into his pockets. 

“I don’t need to _thank you,_ you overgrown fiddlehead-”

Joe smirks at him and for a moment Cherry thinks that he’s going to insult him back and feels momentarily victorious- Joe’s far better at provoking Cherry than Cherry is provoking Joe, which they drunkenly theorize has something to do with exercise being an outlet for rage and bougie networking a repressor- until he says, in the same soft voice, “the sunset’s gorgeous, isn’t it?”

Cherry flicks his eyes out to where the clouds are stained orange and pink. On his drive over he’d thought about the sunset only in terms of the impending darkness, the danger that might befall Miya, but now it seems rather beautiful. He sideeyes Joe. “I hate when you don’t rise to my bait,” he says. 

Joe laughs. “I can’t always, foureyes, someone’s gotta keep you safe.”

Cherry clicks his tongue and swats Joe with his fan- lightly, since there’s something strangely light and fragile about the moment they seem to have found themselves in. “I would argue _I’m_ usually the one keeping you safe, Mr. ‘aiming for skin cancer at 35.’”

Joe flexes, evidently to show off the tan that’s barely visible under his leather jacket, and Cherry rolls his eyes. “Kojiro-”

“Stay and watch the clouds with me?” Joe interrupts.

Cherry can feel a thousand responses line themselves up in his chest, everything from excuses to direct refusals to confessions of every single secret he’s accrued in the last decade. He swallows all of them and says, “I suppose.”

Joe doesn’t smile in response, but it’s a near thing and Cherry doesn’t lean into him when the other man wraps an arm around his waist, but it’s a near thing. 

**From: chinen miya 😺** **  
****dad i need you to come to sialaluce right away** **  
****it’s an emergency**

 **From: Sakurayashiki Kaoru** **  
****Miya, this is an impressively transparent lie. Please, Kojiro and I are fine without your tutelage. I have work I ought to be doing tonight.**

 **From: chinen miya 😺** **  
****please joe is dying 🙀** **  
****from how hard i’m beating him at smash bros lol he still insists on playing as ganon**

 **From: chinen miya 😺** **  
****.. cmon dad i told u it’s an emergency**

 **From: Sakurayashiki Kaoru** **  
****Fine. Is this a loungewear emergency or a formal emergency?**

Cherry arrives at Sialaluce twenty minutes later, wearing (embarrassingly) one of Joe’s sweatshirt’s he’d left at Cherry’s when changing into his S gear one day and a pair of running shorts. They’re some of the only western clothes he owns, the shorts for his evening yoga sessions and that sweatshirt out of spite, since if Joe was lazy enough to leave something at Cherry’s apartment, Cherry decides he gets to keep it.

The restaurant’s been closed for hours now, since Joe closes early on Mondays, and Miya’s sprawled out on top of one of the tables with his switch propped up against a centerpiece. 

“Get your feet off the table,” Cherry chides, “that’s a violation of some health code, I’m sure.”

Joe emerges from the kitchen, holding a wooden spoon. He scowls at Cherry. “What’s the priss doing here?” he asks Miya, not breaking eye contact. His eyes seem a very deep brown in the warm light of the restaurant, but that’s nothing new. Cherry is familiar with how every angle of Joe’s face looks like in Sialaluce late at night. 

Joe’s mouth is curved down at the corners now and it makes Cherry smirk on instinct, which only deepens his frown.

“I invited him,” Miya shrugs. “Back when you were playing video games with me. I thought maybe having him here would let you win once or twice. Like a good luck charm.”

Joe looks Cherry up and down, ostensibly evaluating whether he’d be a worthy good luck charm. His eyes visibly catch on Cherry’s shorts. Cherry crosses his arms, rolls his eyes, and Joe grins.

“He looks distracting-” Cherry glares and Joe raises an eyebrow, correcting himself, “-angry enough he’d probably be a bad luck charm.”

“Those aren’t a thing,” Miya says, raising a hand without looking away from his game, “and I don’t know, you work better under pressure. At least he would’ve made you play as Palutena or something and you might’ve stood a chance.”

“Actually,” Cherry says, finally looking away from Joe to smile at Miya, “my favorite is Ryu. Although I do like Paluntena’s hair.” The comment obviously goes completely over Joe’s head, since the man seems to space out as soon as Miya starts talking about video games, but Cherry finds it a fascinating use of technology and he spent an afternoon listening to Miya describe the entire SSBU roster in excruciating detail. He may as well use that useless knowledge to tease Joe.

“What the _fuck._ Why would you say that.” Miya vehemently smashes all the controller’s buttons with one hand and the console plays a sad _game over_ series of notes.

"Language," Cherry chides.

Joe’s still staring at Cherry with a slight frown on his face, obviously having registered very little of the conversation since his last input. “I’ll have to make more pasta,” he says, obviously irritated by the extra work, “you can charge Carla in the corner.”

“Thank you,” Cherry says, both for the food and the outlet. He leans down to pick up his board and when he stands back up Joe is a few yards closer, holding the pasta-sauce covered spoon up.

Cherry squints at it. “Get sauce on my sweatshirt and they’ll never find your body.”

“We both know that’s not your sweatshirt,” Joe says easily, and shoves the spoon in Cherry’s face. “Taste it!”

“Get that away from my face!”

“I will if you try it,” Joe insists.

“Bullheaded boulder,” Cherry says, but tentatively licks the spoon. “It’s good,” he says.

“Tasteless cheapskate,” Joe snipes, “Just good?”

Cherry shrugs. “You’ve made better.” 

Joe scoffs. “This’ll be the best penne you’ve had in your life, Kaoru. Trust me.”

 _Trust me,_ Cherry’s mind echoes. He rolls his eyes and goes to plug Carla in.

**From: chinen miya 😺** **  
****!! langa won a bunch of free ice cream tokens for some fancy new ice cream place downtown do u want to come?? it looks rly cool**

 **From: Sakurayashiki Kaoru** **  
****If I show up and you are waiting with Kojiro, there will be consequences.**

 **From: chinen miya 😺** **  
****myaaahhh you’re not my dad**

Cherry sighs and looks from Miya’s most recent message to the ice cream shop, where the boy is standing under Joe’s wing and rattling off some absurdly long string of words that must amount to an ice cream order. Next to the pair, in big chalk kanji, are the words _Free Ice Cream for Families! Happy Father’s day!_ and Cherry very nearly leaves right then. 

He doesn’t, obviously, just glides over to them on Carla before kicking the board up into his hand and raising an eyebrow.

“What’re my _consequences,_ dad?” Miya says, still smiling angelically at the person behind the counter. Cherry sighs.

“I’m not paying for this,” he says.

Joe wraps an arm around Cherry and leans close, says, “Didn’t you read the sign? We’re not paying, sweetheart.”

Cherry’s come to expect pet names when they’re playing at being Miya’s fathers, so that doesn’t give him pause. What _does_ is Joe’s hand creeping closer to his ass, so he hits the other man on the shoulder with his fan and clicks his tongue. “Hands to yourself, imbecile.”

Joe laughs. “Or what?” he leers, but his hand goes back to Cherry’s waist and stays there. “You won’t pay for our free ice cream? Miya and I almost had some without you, but he said it just wouldn’t be fathers day without both his dads.”

Cherry rolls his eyes, then smiles serenely. He’s in a good mood today, and while he would be loath to admit it, seeing Miya and Joe has only bolstered it. Two can play at this game, he thinks, and leans up to Joe’s ear.

“Or they’ll stay to yourself in bed tonight, _darling,”_ he murmurs, and snickers when Joe turns red. Cherry knows that Miya couldn’t have heard anything he said, but the middle schooler still looks somewhere between unimpressed and nauseated. 

The teenager behind the counter looks bored, holding Miya’s towering order in one hand and an ice cream scoop in the other. They hand Miya his ice cream when he makes grabby hands for it, then turn their impervious gaze on Joe and Cherry. “Do you have your orders ready?”

Joe quickly recites a short order of words that Cherry would not normally associate with ice cream, like _curry_ and _bacon._ He starts to wonder if his usual order of cookies and cream will be acceptable. 

A glance at the menu bolted above the counter suggests that no, it won’t be. He crosses his arms and taps his fan against his knuckles, considering. There are nearly two dozen flavors on the board. He can feel himself getting overwhelmed just reading them. 

He doesn’t realize he’s zoned out until Joe squeezes his side, right above the hem of his obi. The other man is already holding his dessert, Cherry notes with some mortification, a waffle cone with two scoops- one light brown with small bacon bits in it, the other deep orange. 

The teenager looks too bored to be irritated with how long Cherry’s taken to choose a flavor.

“I don’t know what to order,” Cherry says, curling his lip in irritation. He finds himself a little startled how easily he admitted that to the other man- it’s a tiny thing, but it’s still an admission of weakness, of something that Cherry didn’t manage to do.

Joe’s eyes light up and Cherry realizes that he doesn’t feel a hint of apprehension at the expression, no worry that Joe is going to make fun of how out of depth he is among strange cuisine. It’s a warm realization, and Cherry studiously doesn’t put a name to what he knows it is.

“Can I order for you?” Joe says. “I was thinking about what flavors you’d like the whole time we were waiting for you.” He looks so pleased with himself that Cherry smiles up at the menu board.

“Sure,” he says, “I’m not paying either way.”

“Cheapskate four-eyes,” Joe says, then turns to smile widely at the teenager. “One single scoop cake cone with chai on the bottom and, uh, cherry lovesicle on top. And then pistachos as a topping? Thanks.”

The teenager nods, eyes half-lidded, and starts methodically putting the cone together. Cherry raises his eyebrows up at the board. “What an awful flavor name,” he comments, and Joe snickers.

“You mean chai? I think it’s just named after the tea, baby.”

One upside of standing like this, tucked under Joe’s arm, is that Cherry’s elbow is right at the bottom of the other man’s ribs, perfect for jabbing in retaliation. Joe yelps and Cherry rolls his eyes. “Oaf,” he says.

“I think you’ll like it,” Joe says, “just trust me!”

 _I do,_ Cherry almost says, but even just thinking the words feels like a heart attack, a chink in his armor the size of a cannonball. He just nods and when Joe turns back to the counter, ready to accept Cherry’s ice cream and likely steal the first bite of it, Cherry slips one of his hands into the chef’s back pocket. Because he doesn’t have any pockets of his own, he tries to rationalize, and his hands have to go somewhere. 

He’s so busy berating himself for such a terrible excuse that he doesn’t notice Joe’s polite grin melt into something more genuine, but when he catches Miya’s eye the middle schooler is grinning smugly. He narrows his eyes and Miya makes an overexaggerated kissy face before miming gagging himself.

Cherry clicks his tongue and turns to take his ice cream come from the man standing next to him. _Children,_ he thinks derisively. _Too perceptive for their own good._

**From: chinen miya 😺** **  
****okay SO i know that the last few times i texted you have been kinda transparently traps but i rly do need your help this time** **  
****i need an adult to be at the piercing salon with me and they don’t believe that joe’s old enough**

 **From: Sakurayashiki Kaoru** **  
****And I am?** **  
****Tsk, never mind. Is Kojiro still with you?**

 **From: chinen miya 😺** **  
****depends. is that a pro or a con**

 **From: Sakurayashiki Kaoru** **  
****I’m going to take that as a yes. Have you gotten your parents’ permission for this modification?**

 **From: chinen miya 😺** **  
****joe says you had a lip ring when you were a teenager. did u have ur parents permission for that???** **  
****joe says you did it yourself in his bathroom. do u want me to pierce my ears in the bathroom?? im going to get an ear infection and blame you.**

 **From: Sakurayashiki Kaoru** **  
****Miya.**

 **From: Sakurayashiki Kaoru** **  
****Fine. I will be there in a few moments.**

The bells tied to the piercing parlor’s door make a loud, clear noise when Cherry walks in. It’s got a remarkably nice atmosphere, really, smooth hardwood beneath his feel and tattoo designs on posters covering up black walls. Someone is talking to the woman at the front desk and Joe and Miya are sitting in a small waiting area, looking dejected. 

Cherry decides that, no matter how clean the rest of the shop might be, he doesn’t want to step on the shag rug underneath the couch. He says hello from a safe vantage a few feet away, and Joe’s head shoots up, then droops again as recognition settles in his eyes. 

“Oh, it’s _you.”_

“Tch,” Cherry says, “what a greeting.” 

It feels a bit strange to be speaking with them when he is standing and they are sitting, so he eyes the situation. The couch they’re on is fairly low to the ground, enough that Joe’s knees are bent at an acute angle, and Cherry thinks that he can reach it without stepping on the rug or taking any abnormally large steps. He moves to perch on one of the arms, rustling Miya’s hair. 

The middle schooler is playing something on his phone with lots of bright lights and quickly moving objects and he barely looks up at the touch.

“We called both you and Shadow, since you both look like adults,” he explains, jabbing his pointer finger at a particularly orange monster and watching as it violently blows up, “and were betting on which of you would actually show up.”

“Oh?” Cherry is, momentarily, _stupidly,_ hurt that Joe bet against his willingness to indulge Miya, but the chef bites back a groan and rolls his eyes. 

“I bet on you and Miya bet on Shadow,” he explains, “since I’ve figured you’d do basically anything for the kid if you’ve put up with my ugly mug so often recently just because he asks-” Cherry chuckles and Joe looks exaggeratedly hurt before moving on, “and then Miya announced that the winner gets a piercing. Non-negotiable.”

 _Ah,_ Cherry raises his eyebrows. “So he wins either way.”

“I learned from the best,” Miya says. He doesn’t elaborate as to _who,_ so Cherry decides to assume he means Cherry, since he doesn’t enjoy thinking about the other possibility. “Anyway, I’m glad you showed up. I’m getting my ears pierced either way, and this is funnier.”

Joe rests his forearms on his thighs, hanging his head. “Sure,” he says, _“funnier.”_

Cherry surveys his friend and the child sitting between them, evaluates Miya’s smirk down at his phone and Joe’s faux exasperation and decides that yes, this is funnier and that he’s glad he came. 

He crosses his legs and props his chin in his hand. “Well, what piercing are you getting?” he asks, giving up on trying to suppress the smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. 

When they were teenagers he used to spend hours trying to goad Joe into letting him pierce his ears- there was a month their second year where Cherry had fixated on the idea of Joe with a nipple piercing, and it had been the closest he’d come to actually convincing his friend. The subject certainly hadn’t come up since high school, though, and even Cherry doesn’t wear his piercings anymore so he can’t help but find this evolution entertaining.

“You think this is funny?” Joe challenges, and Cherry raises an eyebrow.

“Horribly,” he says, “years of me peer pressuring you didn’t even get you an ear piercing and now you’re up for anything just because a middle schooler told you to?”

“I’m intimidating,” Miya says, dragging his finger across the screen and apparently somehow killing a slew of purple slimes. “Shadow says I am imbued with an aura of threateningness.”

“See!” Joe says, “you’d get a piercing too if Miya told you to.”

“I don’t need any more piercings,” Cherry says lightly. Joe’s eyes narrow.

“You don’t have any right now,” he says slowly, like he knows there’s a trap at the end of this chain of inquiries but doesn’t mind that he’s stumbling into it. Cherry thinks and finds that he does that himself fairly often. Their relationship wouldn’t be much fun without tripping the other up, so he supposes it shouldn’t be much of a surprise they both allow the other that fairly often.

He doesn’t know what to do with that realization- nothing, likely. The revelations of how much he implicitly counts on Joe every day are becoming less and less shocking by the day, and he supposes he will have to put them all together soon into one entity with the terrifying label of _trust._

But he doesn’t have to do that now, so he won’t.

Cherry leans forward, letting his hair come untucked and drape over his face, and he smirks at Joe. “That you can see,” he says, and Joe goes red.

“Oh, fuck off,” he says, leaning back and throwing an arm around Miya.

“You’re messing up my game, dad,” Miya snipes. His screen goes black, then _game over_ in red letters and he sighs up at Cherry. “I think he should get an eyebrow piercing,” he says. “The girls at S would think it was cool.”

Cherry clicks his tongue. “The girls at S would think anything Kojiro does is cool,” he says. He’s never been _jealous_ of them all, since he knows that Joe never makes decisions around what they like and he still remembers helping Joe pick out his S costume, vetoing jacket patterns at two in the morning. Still, he thinks their blind worship is fairly absurd.

“As opposed to you, who has incredibly high standards for me,” Joe says. 

Cherry eyes him. “Exactly.”

Joe grins. “I’m thinking a lip piercing,” he says, biting his lip in a way Cherry assumes is supposed to show where he would want it pierced. It’s… _distracting,_ and Joe obviously knows it. Payback, probably, for Cherry’s teasing.

Well, two can play this game. “You certainly liked mine,” he says serenely, tucking his hair behind his ears and raising an eyebrow. 

Miya’s eyes tighten and his screen flashes _game over_ again. “Stop,” he orders.

Joe looks abashed and Cherry almost laughs until Miya turns his glare up at him.

Once Miya seems to deem them both suitably intimidated and turns back to his game, restarting the level, Joe shoots Cherry a grin over the kid’s head. “So, is that a yes for the lip piercing?” he half-whispers.

Cherry feels his brow crease. “They can interfere with your sense of taste,” he says thoughtfully. He’d read up on the risks of piercing anything near ones mouth a few weeks after his own had healed and had been thoroughly unphased by the lists of potential dangers. Now, though, they seem more significant.

Joe makes a face. “Maybe not, then.”

“I don’t know what we’d do without your cooking,” Cherry says, and there’s a strange momentary pause where both men try to figure out if he’s being sarcastic. He feels himself blush. 

“Probably have to buy your own groceries, you cheapskate snob,” Joe finally says, and Cherry rolls his eyes.

“Carla does for me,” he says. 

Joe’s eyes light up and he leans over Miya to get closer to Cherry, who only realizes what’s happening too late. “Carla,” Joe says, “add twenty boxes of candy hearts to the shopping list.”

“Ugh,” Cherry says.

“Of course,” Carla says, soothingly mechanical voice coming from the phone in Cherry’s pocket. Joe’s eyes widen.

“You have her set to respond to my voice?”

Cherry tucks his hands into his sleeves and shrugs. He senses this is a revelation that will seem more embarrassing if he breaks eye contact with Joe. “I’ve never quite given up on you coming around to her usefulness. Your skating could be so much better,” he says, although the real reason is simply that, when he had programmed her the first time in his twenties, it had never occurred to him to _not_ include Joe and he had never quite mustered the energy to change those settings. 

“Real skaters don’t need to depend on tech tricks,” Miya announces. Joe musses his hair.

“Don’t be mean to your dad, kiddo,” he says.

“Whatever,” Miya says. “What’d you guys decide on? I was trying to tune out the whole conversation, so I don’t know any of what you said.”

Joe shrugs. “I dunno, I’m letting Kaoru choose.”

Cherry blinks. “You’re _what?”_ He quickly scans through their conversation, trying to remember if they’d spoken about this. Sometimes he slips into autopilot while talking with Joe, some comfortable part of his mind taking the wheel and agreeing to things he knows are stupid. 

“I mean,” Joe says, eyes locked with Cherry and the set of his face suggesting something heavier than whatever inane statement Cherry’s sure he’s going to say, “I trust you.”

Cherry’s breath catches and Miya punches him in the shoulder. “Tell him to get a nipple piercing,” Miya stage-whispers, “it’ll be funnier.”

Cherry considers it. It _would_ be funny and a kind of vindication for his teenage self. It would also probably piss Joe off and distract from the way he’s looking at Cherry, like _Joe_ trusting _Cherry_ is some sort of challenge. But when he reevaluates the situation, meets Miya’s eyes, he’s struck by the conviction that this is a test. Miya’s conniving when he wants to be, and the string of run-ins with the pair of them have likely been practice, the boy deciding if the two of them _should_ trust each other.

He supposes part of that is having the other’s best interests in mind and saying what he actually thinks, not just whatever he thinks would be the most entertaining to watch Joe react to. 

Cherry reaches up to touch his ear- he’d rather point it out on Joe, since they’ve always both been very good at finding excuses to touch each other, but he’s hyper aware of Miya sitting between them- and says, “I think a double ear piercing would look good on you. I can pay for the second, if you need me to.”

Joe’s eyes melt and Miya goes back to his game, smiling a little. Cherry thinks it’s absurd to feel any euphoria from passing whatever stupid test he was likely imagining anyway. Still, he observes the burst of happiness in his chest for a moment. It fades to a steady comfort, one Cherry remembers noticing that night at the boardwalk and every single other moment he’s around Joe, and he thinks that maybe this is what he was so scared of. 

It feels a bit silly, to be so terrified of trust when he’s trusted the same man his whole life. Cherry shakes his head and lets himself smile. 

“Sounds good, baby,” Joe says. Cherry hits him with his fan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- miya at the beginning of this chapter: yeah joe and cherry are stupid but i really care about these men who have been role models for me and i want them to be happy :) miya at the end of this chapter: maybe homophobia exists for a reason  
> \- miya calls cherry and joe dad because he doesn't know their last names & thinks it would be kinda weird to call them by their first names but also knows that cherry will chide him if he calls them their s names in public so he just came to the logical conclusion  
> \- kaoru has mitski vibes and cherry blossom has pansy division vibes  
> \- i purposely avoided mentioning what character miya mains in ssbu bc im torn between one of the competitively good characters, dark pit, or like jigglypuff. anyway give me ur opinions in the comments!!  
> \- if you enjoyed this, please comment and kudos!! i really appreciate it, and the next chapter (the confessions :0 and also just some family fluff) will be up all the sooner if i get validation from this chapter lol :) you can find me on tumblr [@lazypigeon](https://lazypigeon.tumblr.com/)!! i hope you have a great day/night :)


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